Monday 17th November 2008, day 121. 22° 18’.56 N, 020° 16’.74 W. On passage from La Gomera to Saõ Vicente, Cape Verde Islands, a journey of around 800 miles.
We are three days out from La Gomera, waiting for the half-way point of the passage to come up, in about 15 miles. Yesterday we passed the southern border of Morocco, making the vast sandy hills of Mauritania our landfall to the east. This morning we crossed the tropic of Cancer at 23° N, but the weather today has been almost cool, with a grey haze masking the sun.
Tomia is rollicking along downwind, thoroughly enjoying herself at 7 knots, without disturbing two crew who are taking their afternoon nap, and the skipper reading his John le Carré and just twitching the fishing line every now and then. He is also of course making sure the spinnaker is properly set, and keeping a sharp lookout for passing shipping; from my vantage point at the chart table, I would say John le Carré is winning.
By the third day, the strangeness of going about our normal tasks, while bobbing about on a little piece of glass fibre in the middle of the ocean, is wearing off. It seems quite natural thing to lie, half awake, in one’s berth, listening to the water rushing by, just three quarters of an inch away. Or to sit at the computer at the chart table, blinded occasionally by a glimpse of sun when the spinnaker falls inwards for a second. Or to shower in lovely hot water, with one’s soapy back braced against the rolling of the boat, and the shower gel placed carefully where it can’t fall. We are all bending and swaying with the movement of the boat, unconsciously reaching for handholds, remembering to open cupboard doors with caution, putting things down where they won’t roll, or leap off tables. Everything is a little bit odd; everything is surprisingly normal.
And meanwhile Tomia carries us along, free and willing and exuberant.
For me, the first day or so of a passage is so overwhelming in its alien-ness from normal life, and the sensations and challenges of life afloat are so strong, that only the simplest of thoughts manages to make its way to the surface. Not falling over, staring down sea-sickness, remembering radio schedules, getting food out of the fridge, adjusting sleep patterns to the requirements of watch-keeping, cooking, navigating and just plain sailing the boat are all-consuming. Gradually, though, they become part of the background, and the brain re-emerges, to read and to imagine, to think of friends at home; to practise the guitar, and to try to shoe-horn a few more words of Portuguese in before arriving at the Cape Verdes.
And to write up the blog. Some of you have asked how we manage to use the computer at sea, without it sliding around all over the place. Those who know me well have wondered how I allow a prized possession like my laptop to come to sea at all. In fact, the computer is a key part of Tomia’s kit, acting as photo-storage, CD player, diary, log and maintenance scheduler, as well as being our main source of weather information.
On ocean passages, there are three main sources of weather forecasts: weather faxes, weather broadcasters, and the ubiquitous Web, whose filaments now seem to cover the entire world’s surface. Navtex has a range of about 200 miles, so peters out after the first day or so, and the soothing tones of the Radio 4 shipping forecast have been nothing but a fond memory since we rounded Punta Nariga in Galicia.
The internet is the source of wind forecasts known as grib files, which predict the wind up to seven days out, in an easy to read animation. With a fast enough connection, the internet can be the source of just about any other information one wants, but that’s the problem: how to get an internet connection at sea? SSB radios can work with something called a Pactor modem, which gives connection of a speed, quality and stability that rewards only the calmest and most phlegmatic of operators. They also cost £1,500.
A satellite phone provides quick and reliable connection, but costs £1 a minute on top of the £1,300 initial outlay. They can be used to quickly squirt a grib file into the onboard computer, and upload a day’s position onto a blog. They are effective, but the purchase cost deterred us. Finally, the sickeningly rich can be recognised in marinas by the fat white dome on their boat’s superstructure (as opposed to the fat white belly on their own), which houses an Inmarsat satellite receiver, providing broadband-type connectivity. We could have bought one, but would have had to sell the boat to pay for it, which seems a little counter-productive.
We have chosen to get our weather from a mixture of weather faxes, and weather broadcasters. The faxes are an amazing piece of technology: they come to us in the form of chirrups and burbles from the SSB radio, which a piece of software on the computer downloads and translates into synoptic charts. Pause and reread that, and marvel.
Weather stations all round the world, from Iqualuit to Tashkent, broadcast these charts, together with predictions of wave heights, hurricanes, and iceberg movement at pre-scheduled times; for this passage we are getting the current situation sent out by New Orleans, and forecasts for 48 hours away, from Boston.
I still find it utterly fascinating to turn on the radio, hear the pattern of warbling that indicates the start of a new file, and watch it emerge inch by inch on the computer screen. Still more amazing in a way is that this relatively old technology, now thoroughly overtaken for commercial shipping by satellite communications, is still reliably produced, for free, by so many state-funded weather stations. Long may it continue.
Our final weather resource is the few dedicated individuals who do their own forecasting, for the benefit of any yacht that wants them. The two best known are Herb, up in Canada, and Trudi, in the Caribbean. They both run their own ham radio transmitters. We will sign in with one or both of them, tell them our planned passage, and then call in on the SSB at a pre-arranged time every night, to be told what is coming our way, and to get advice on the best course to steer to take advantage of what is likely to be affecting us.
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